PLANTATION, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 25, 2025--
Akumin Inc. (“Akumin” or the “Company”), a leader in managed radiology and oncology services, announced the deployment of its first two Akumin AXIS Expandable Patient Solutions suites in partnership with Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto and Bon Secours Harbour View Medical Center. Each unit features state-of-the-art PET/CT imaging technology and is purpose-built to enhance patient and staff experiences, improve workflows, and expand access to care in these communities.
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Akumin AXIS on Hospital Campus
Akumin is the number one provider of mobile radiology, and with its proprietary Akumin AXIS solution, the Company is poised to transform the industry. This innovative, fully equipped, expandable imaging solution delivers the spacious, modern feel of a permanent building while retaining the advantages of relocatability. Akumin unveiled the groundbreaking solution at RSNA 2024 as a new class of care delivery, offering hospitals and health systems a smarter and more flexible way to provide advanced care.
Specifically, the Akumin AXIS PET/CT configuration features three uptake rooms, enabling more than twice the patient capacity compared to a standard mobile trailer. This added efficiency helps meet growing demand, and the launch of the first two Akumin AXIS suites underscores the Company’s continued commitment to expanding access to care by equipping hospitals with a modern, versatile solution that enhances the experience of both patients and staff.
“Akumin AXIS was designed based on direct feedback from our hospital partners, who face the challenges of high construction costs, limited capital, and growing patient demand,” said Henry Howe, Akumin CEO. “By offering a fully equipped solution that can be operational in as little as 60 days, Akumin AXIS is already being recognized as a revolutionary model for expanding access to advanced imaging services. We are thrilled to have successfully deployed the initial units with our partners Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto and Bon Secours Harbour View Medical Center. In the coming weeks, we will launch an Akumin AXIS model equipped with LINAC (Linear Accelerator) technology for targeted cancer treatment, followed by a model with 1.5T MRI capabilities in the near future.”
Baptist Memorial Hospital – Desoto in Southaven, Mississippi
Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, part of Baptist Memorial Health Care, is a 339-bed acute care hospital serving Southaven, Mississippi, and the surrounding region. The hospital offers a full range of diagnostic services, surgical, heart including open-heart surgery, neurology, cancer care, emergency, women’s services, an inpatient rehab and more. The hospital completed a $19 million emergency department expansion and renovation project in 2018 that added 20,000 square feet to the facility. An 87,000-square-foot, $55 million physician office building opened on the hospital campus in July 2022. The hospital was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a high-performing hospital in six specialties for 2025-2026, the American Heart Association for cardiac and stroke care and the first hospital in Mississippi to be recognized as an American College of Cardiology HeartCARE Center National Distinction of Excellence in 2025. With nearly 2,000 dedicated employees, Baptist-DeSoto continues to raise the standard of clinical excellence while providing compassionate care to its community.
Bon Secours Harbour View Medical Center – Suffolk, Virginia
Bon Secours Harbour View Medical Center, part of Bon Secours – Hampton Roads, is the region’s first “smart hospital,” designed to enhance safety, communication and comfort for patients, families and care teams through integrated smart technology. Established in 2025, the medical center builds upon the foundation of the long-standing Harbour View Emergency Department, expanding its capabilities with four operating rooms and 18 private inpatient rooms. This modern, state-of-the-art facility offers a range of surgical services including orthopedic and bariatric procedures. Located in Suffolk, Harbour View Medical Center extends Bon Secours commitment to the Northern Suffolk and Western Hampton Roads communities, where it has provided outpatient care for decades.
About Akumin
Akumin is a leading U.S. provider of advanced imaging and radiation oncology services, committed to excellence in patient care and expanding access to life-saving diagnostics and treatments. Serving millions annually, Akumin operates one of the nation’s largest networks of fixed-site radiology centers and mobile imaging and oncology solutions, including the innovative Akumin AXIS™ Expandable Patient Solutions. Partnering with over 1,000 hospitals and physician groups, including 23 of the top 30 health systems, Akumin combines clinical expertise, operational excellence, and advanced technology to broaden access, enhance care standards, and meet community needs. Through innovation and collaboration, Akumin is pioneering the future of patient-centered care. For more information, visit www.akumin.com.
Akumin AXIS PET/CT Unit
BERLIN (AP) — Standing on an open truck making its way through Berlin, Anahita Safarnejad turned to the crowd of Iranian protesters marching behind her and took the microphone.
“No more dictatorship in Iran, the mullahs must go!” she shouted. Hundreds of voices echoed her slogan with the same sense of urgency and desperation.
Across Europe, thousands of exiled Iranians have taken to the streets to shout out their rage at the government of the Islamic Republic which has cracked down on protests in their homeland, reportedly killing thousands of people.
Women have taken a prominent role in organizing the protests abroad, raising their voices against the theocratic government that discriminates against them.
But beyond the anger, there’s also a sense of fear and paralysis. Iran's government has been shutting down the internet and limiting phone calls for days, making it nearly impossible for Iranians in the diaspora to find out if their families back home are safe.
Safarnejad, 34, fled Iran seven years ago. She came to Berlin to study theater but now works in a bar when she's not attending one of the almost-daily protests in the German capital.
Since the demonstrations broke out in Iran in late December, Safarnejad said she's been living in two different realities that are almost impossible to combine. The easygoing hipster life of her new hometown is a jarring contrast to the bloody protests in Iran that she's been following every minute she doesn't have to work, glued to her phone for the latest updates.
While she was initially almost euphoric that the current uprising would finally bring freedom to Iran and she'd be able to go back home, her sense of hope has turned into horror.
Safarnejad hasn't spoken to her brother, also a protester, since communications with Iran were cut off. She's been scouring video on social media showing piles of dead bodies to see if he's among the corpses.
“I'm desperate and don't know how to keep going anymore,” she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she spoke to The Associated Press during Wednesday's Berlin protest.
“I can’t really switch off. I can’t really stop reading the news either," she added, her voice breaking. “Because I’m waiting all the time for the internet to be available so I can get some answers from my family.”
The young woman's horror is felt by many of the more than 300,000 Iranians living in Germany — one of the biggest exile communities in Europe and similar in numbers to France and Britain. Many of them still have family ties to their homeland, even if they left decades ago.
Mehregan Maroufi's Persian cafe and bookstore in Berlin has become a place of solace for Iranians to share their grief without many words — because they know they are all living through the same nightmare.
Maroufi, the daughter of the late Iranian author Abbas Maroufi, welcomes Iranians and everyone else at the Hedayat Cafe, where she serves Persian tea with sweets such as chocolate cake topped with barberries. She lends an ear to anyone who has to get worries off their chest.
“For some, the emotions are still too high and too strong, so to speak, and it’s impossible to talk," the 44-year-old says, adding that she, too, had to force herself to open the cafe on some mornings because the violent images coming out of Iran sucked away all her energy.
“But at least you can find compatriots here. You can talk to a little, and that helps,” she said.
She says she's been listening to and learning from the convictions her fellow Iranians express when they talk about their dreams of an Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that — due to the uprising — now seems closer that ever before.
While most in the diaspora agree that the theocracy has to be toppled, ideas of what a new Iran should look like differ widely.
Adeleh Tavakoli, 62, joined a demonstration outside Britain’s Parliament in London earlier this week. She hasn't been back to Iran in 17 years but has spent decades protesting from afar against the Islamic Republic.
But with the latest wave of protests, she hopes that the Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah ousted by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, will return to power. If he does, she said, she has her bag packed and is ready to get on the first flight.
“For 47 years, our country has been captured by a terrorist regime,” she said. “We’ve been the voice of Iran. All we want is our freedom and to get rid of this horrible dictatorship.”
For Maral Salmassi, who came to Germany as a child in the 1980s, history explains the calls by exiled Iranians for Pahlavi to lead the country.
“As an Iranian, as someone who comes from this culture and knows its culture and history, I can only say that we have had kings and queens for thousands of years. It is our culture," said Salmassi. She is the chairwoman and founder of the Zera Institute think tank in Berlin, which researches democracy, radicalization and extremism.
She added that Iranians make up a multi-ethnic country and "to bring them all together again, we need a constitutional monarchy that symbolically and traditionally represents our identity and reunites everyone ... and then a democratic, federal parliament where everyone is represented equally.”
However, not everyone is convinced by Pahlavi. Maryam Nejatipur, 32, who also joined the protest in Berlin, thinks her country should avoid a cult of personality.
“We don’t need something like Khamenei again. We don’t need one person,” to lead us, she said, as she burnt a portrait of the Ayatollah and used the flames to light a cigarette — an act that's become a symbol of Iranian resistance.
Safarnejad, who led the recent Berlin protest, agrees.
“I don’t belong to the left, I’m not a liberal, I’m not a monarchist,” she stressed. “I’ve been there for women’s rights, I’m for human rights, I’m for freedom.”
Fanny Brodersen and Ebrahim Noroozi, in Berlin, and Brian Melley in London contributed reporting.
Protester Adeleh Tavakoli, left, demonstrates outside the House of Parliament, in London, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
People take part in a rally in support of anti-government protests in Iran, Berlin Germany, Wednesday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Iranian Mehregan Maroufi poses for a photo before an interview with the Associated Press in her cafe in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Iranian Maryam Nejatipur 32, poses for a photo after a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Iranian Anahita Safarnejad, 34, poses for a photo after a demonstration in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
